Data Format for Binary NetCDFForcing

[donaldwj]

We have no formally determined the format hat NetCDF forcing will be stored in

Proposed Format

A NetCDF forcing file will comtain

• A table containing the catchment ids for every catchment in the hydrofabric. This table will be used to determine what row should be read from to obtain data for this catchment in all other tables.
• A series of two dimensional data tables where one dimension is sized by the number of catchment ids and the dimension is time. The time dimension may be a fixed size or unbounded (Some testing to determine if there are any performance implications on this choice).
• File metadata including at least
  • The starting date for the epoc of this file
  • The first valid time
  • The last valid time
  • Other data to be determined

We need to determine naming conventions and what additional meta data is needed.

[donaldwj]

Initial Proposed format has been implemented.

Required meta data includes but is most likely not limited to:

1. The first and last valid date for variables contained in the file.
2. The epoch start date used for decoding the time data
3. Per variable a flag indicating if a variable is forcing or data assimilation
4. Per variable time step of variable data
5. Per variable start and stop time if different from main file
6. Per variable units for variable